“God does not provide us with a roadmap, but only a compass.”
1st Sunday in Lent – Year B (Mark 1:12-15).
Often as I wake up in the morning I get an inspiration. Usually it is in the form of a well-framed sentence. If I am fresh enough to pick it up, it stays with me for the rest of the day. I keep exploring it during the day, and sometimes I jot it down in my diary and use it for my talks and sermons. I call this phenomenon, ‘Twilight Wisdom’. A few days ago I woke up with this sentence: “God does not provide us with a roadmap, but only a compass.” I thought I would develop my Lenten reflections this year around this theme, and every Sunday try also to introduce a […]
Year B
Year B Sunday Sermons
5th Sunday in Ordinary Time Sermon – Year B homily
5th Sunday in Ordinary time – Year B
“Everybody is looking for you” (Mk 1:29-39):
Being busy – restless or engaged?
The contemporary culture forces us to be busy. The more you are urbanised, the more you are likely to be busy. We keep inventing machines to save time, and yet we keep complaining all the time: there is no time! Whether our time is spent productively or not, we are simply busy. We are busy checking emails. We are busy talking on the phone. We are busy tweeting and chatting. When we are not busy, actually we are busy planning how to be busy. Are you a busy person? How do you feel about your busy-ness? Do you feel restless? Or, do you feel engaged?
The gospel passage of today describes the busy schedule of […]
4th Sunday of Advent Sermon – Year B Homily: Mary Contemplates
She “asked herself what this greeting could mean” (Lk 1:29)
Mary, a woman of contemplation
4th Sunday of Advent – Year B
As a priest it is not easy to separate your academic interests, your faith-life, and your ministry. At least I don’t find it that easy. In my current academic research for a PhD, I am studying the effect of Christian contemplative practice on recovery from addictive behaviour. Past few weeks I have been analysing the journal entries and interviews of some of the participants in the intervention-study that I conducted a few months back. The method of contemplation that I used is called ‘Jesus Prayer’ – it originated among the desert fathers and mothers in the 4th centuryEgypt, and is still very popular in the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches. It simply consists of repeating the prayer from the gospels: “Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me […]
2nd Sunday of Advent Sermon – Year B Homily: He Comes!
He Comes!
2nd Sunday of Advent – Year B
“Here is your God” (Is 40:9)
Particularly during Advent, I love to use the following set of penitential invocations that goes with the ‘Kyrie Eleison’ or ‘Lord have mercy’:
Lord Jesus, you came to gather the nations in the peace of God’s Kingdom.
You come in word and sacrament to strengthen us in holiness.
You will come in glory with salvation for your people.
This set of invocations remind us that the coming of Christ can be understood in three ways, so to say, with three tense markers: in the past tense, in the present tense and in the future – Jesus came; He comes; and Christ will come. The 1st coming of Jesus is plain enough. It refers to the historical coming of the 2nd person of the Trinity, […]
Sermon for 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B: Version 2
30th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B
Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me (Mk 10: 47)
The gospel story of this Sunday has many meaningful aspects for meditation. For another version of my reflection on this gospel story <<CLICK HERE>>.
In the reflection below I focus on this powerful prayer: “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me”, which is also referred to as the “Jesus Prayer”. The devotion of using this prayer in contemplative practice originated in Egypt in the 3rd Century CE among the earliest groups of Christian monks popularly known as “Desert Fathers and Mothers”. It simply consisted in repeating continuously a version of this prayer: “Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.” It was for the purpose of this prayer […]